Configuring proxy server for "network" license

Our organisation upgraded to SketchUp 2015. The historic definition of a Network License is a license server installed on a server on an internal network, or just a license file on a file share. However, it now changed to more or less a Cloud License.

I guess the majority of SketchUp users are just small organisations which don’t have their primary focus on network security. However, bigger organisations with a normal information security policy just don’t allow direct access from user desktops to the internet (and if they do, they forbid the usage of tropical non-standarized ports like 5053 and 50530). Internet access is normally only provided via a proxy server.

Is it possible to configure a proxy server in SketchUp 2015, or to activate SketchUp another way without a direct internet connection?

Thanks in advance!

This is something that stops my employer from upgrading SketchUp.

Anssi

we have got stuck here the same way, we already procured 120 licences and came to know about the cloud story.
Its not possible to use internet directly on clients pc.
there must be provision or facility of using local server as well.

I am happy to say that our IT department felt our pain, and network licensing now works for us.

Of course, we would have been quite happy with the previous system, especially if some of its install problems had been fixed.

Anssi

hello Anssi,
Could you share how do your IT team sorted out this licence issue…it will be a great help for us…

They simply enabled the ports that are mentioned in the documentation (and the first post in this thread)

Anssi

I’ve also contacted SketchUp support regarding the proxy server question, but I only received a “first line” response which only provides an answer (allow direct internet connections to the license server). SketchUp will close the case and they don’t see it as a problem any more.

However, I personally see this as a major requirement which should be forwarded to the developers as something that should be considered and probably even implemented. Applications which don’t offer this feature are becoming very scarce. The update checker uses the proxy settings as configured on the workstation, so why doesn’t the license check?

While most of the SketchUp users a SMBs, also governmental and military organisations are using it. The majority of these kind of organisations are having some form of security policy in place, which just forbids it to directly connect to the internet. So for these organisations opening some ports to a pool of random workstations is a big no-no.

I see two solutions:

  1. Simply add proxy functionality to the SketchUp application. It is a complete mistery to me why SketchUp doesn’t have any option like this at all.
  2. Let the SketchUp clients connect to a locally hosted license server/proxy. This internal server just passed through the license requests to the “cloud” license server. This avoids the need to allow workstations to directly connect to the internet. You only need make an firewall exclusion for the locally hosted license server.

The second option is probably the most desirable, as it’s in line with other products (AutoCAD License Server, Microsoft KMS, etc.). However, even when implementing this option, you also want to give an option to let the license server connect via a proxy.

I know organisations which are currently holding on to their SketchUp 2014s because of this issue. As a SketchUp customer, I’d like to see this major flaw fixed. I’m willing to offer myself as a test subject for any fixes working towards a solutions for this issue.

I’m looking forward to getting some response from the SketchUp team on this!

2 Likes

Just a small addition: The update checker AND the welcome screen (http://help.sketchup.com/en/in-product/2015/pro/ww/licensed) are using the proxy server as configured on the workstation, so it’s possible! It even loads a bunch of unwanted analytics tools, tracking pixels and cookies (is that even allowed by our fancy EU cookie laws? :smile:).

I’ve just started to install Sketchup Pro 2016 and had no idea about the new Cloud based licensing when I saw it.

And whilst I don’t like it, I thought, well I can whack those ports in my Proxy, I can whitelist the URL and away I should go.

Not the case. Same as Japs has seen it loads the help page and everything else via the Proxy server, but come time to load the license file or do anything else. Nope.

Simple solution would be to have a program like Sketchup, make use of Proxies for everything it does, which is standard practice for the last 20 years to use Proxies to get on the Internet. Not everyone has a Direct Internet Connection.

Has anyone got licencing working through a proxy server?

FYI this was resolved in Which hosts/IPs to allow through Proxy for license authorization/activation - #16 by colin